Republican governors send 1,100 National Guard troops to back Trump’s DC takeover

Republican governors of several states, responding to requests from the Trump administration, are deploying a total of around 1,100 troops from the ranks of the National Guard of their respective states, supporting Trump’s ongoing takeover of law enforcement in Washington, DC. The states sending National Guard troops to the US capital are Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, West Virginia, South Carolina, and Ohio. 

South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster approved the deployment of roughly 200 state Guardsmen to the nation’s capital over the weekend despite the approaching Hurricane Erin, expected to cause “life-threatening” impacts along the state’s coast. National Guard troops in the US are often deployed to assist with relief following national disasters. 

“Our National Guard will work to assist President Trump’s mission, and should a hurricane or natural disaster threaten our state, they can and will be immediately recalled home to respond,” McMaster said.

Ohio Governor Mike DeWine announced on Saturday that his state would be sending around 150 military police from his state’s National Guard. The initial decision to deploy DC National Guard was not my decision. That was the president of the United States’ decision,” DeWine said. “But when the secretary of the Army asks for backup support to our troops that are already deployed, yes, we will back up our troops.”

Some Ohio residents have rallied against DeWine’s decision to send members of the National Guard to support Trump’s DC takeover. Over 50 people gathered in Columbus outside of the Ohio Statehouse on Sunday to protest the deployment. “This is a fundamentally racist attack on a Black, working class city,” said protester Shenby G at the rally. “As Ohioans, are you going to stand for that?” 

Protesters held signs with text including “oppose domestic occupation” and “remember Kent State, May 4, 1970,” referring to when Ohio National Guard troops murdered four college students at an anti-war protest at Kent State University in Ohio. 

DC residents fight back

In Washington, DC itself, residents are continuing to “resist” the incursion of federal forces, says DC-based journalist Esther Iverem. DC residents are “documenting the police, the National Guard, and these different federal agencies here as they harass residents and are arresting people simply trying to go to work. Uber drivers, delivery people, men working in construction as they leave the Home Depot, it’s very targeted.”

Videos of such arrests have circulated social media, including a video posted August 16 on multiple local police and federal agents surrounding a DoorDash delivery driver while he was detained and forced to sit on the pavement with his hands tied behind his back.

Organizations such as Free DC, an organization whose basis is in fighting for self-determination for DC residents (the city currently does not have full representation in Congress), have been organizing protests against the takeover. The organization has been calling on allies in other states to pressure their governors to recall national guard troops. 

Some activists have turned the pressure on against National Guard troops themselves, by urging them to take a stand against Trump. “War based on lies and false pretenses delivered us, our families, and civilians abroad 20 years of disaster. Now we face another war based on lies and false pretenses, but this time on American soil. The ‘war on crime’ is a smokescreen,” reads a statement published by the independent media outlet Empire Files, written as a collaboration between veterans and active-duty soldiers.

“Trump wants to use our social weight as soldiers to serve his branding stunts. Imagine the impact if we stopped being silent props.”

Other grassroots organizations have also denounced Trump’s takeover, including the Palestinian Youth Movement, which called Trump’s move a “continued escalation waged on our people to control, repress, and silence us.”

“This federal takeover is not about law, order, or crime; it is a masquerade and a guise for expanding surveillance, police repression, and making an example of our city,” PYM continued.

The Party for Socialism and Liberation denounced Trump’s takeover as “racist” and the president’s “latest step towards imposing a police state where civil liberties are shredded and cops are given free rein to carry out racist violence.”

“Ending this crackdown is of central importance to the entire movement to stop Trump’s billionaire agenda,” the PSL wrote in a statement.